Monday, December 29, 2014

Snow White and the Huntsman

Snow White and the Huntsman; fantasy/ horror, USA, 2012; D: Rupert Sanders, S: Kristen Stewart, Charlize Theron, Chris Hemsworth, Sam Claflin, Lily Cole, Ian McShane, Johnny Harris, Toby Jones, Bob Hoskins

Snow White is the daughter of a widowed king who made his empire prosper. However, he meets a beautiful, but coniving woman, Ravenna, who seduces him and becomes the new queen. After Ravenna kills the king, she takes control of his empire and causes it to fall apart. She also kills young women to maintin her beauty. When Show White escapes from her, she teams up with the Huntsman who was sent to hunt her down. The two of them also meet eight dwarves and make friends with the opposing forces who want to remove Ravenna from her throne. Snow White is tricked into eating a poisoned apple and dies, but is revived by the Huntsman's kiss. Snow White leads the army that invades the castle, and there she kills Ravenna.

"Snow White and the Huntsman" once again demonstrates a problem of cinema in the 21st century: while the level of technical achievements (cinematography, editing, lighting, special effects...) just got higher and higher, the quality of the storyline just became lower and lower. This is once again an example of perfectly filmed 'autistic' events where the only things that cause the reaction from the audience are cheap scares, disgust, violence and depressive-dark mood which are suppose to carry the entire film. While the '97 film "Snow White: A Tale of Terror" was there before to give a twist to the classic fairy tale and present it in a horror edition, it suffered from same problems as this film: it had no inspiration from such an endlessly dark, bleak and colorless approach. The sheer level of depressive darkness is almost bizarre: Snow White encounters a beautifully white horse, only for it to later fall into the mud and drown in it; Snow White encounters a beautiful white deer, only for it to be shot with an arrow; the evil queen Ravenna emerges from a dark slime... It is unknown for whom this is all aimed at, but it just seems pointless, lifeless, humorless and negative without a measure. Unfortunately, not even the eight dwarves have charm of life to them, and are scarcely featured in the story, where they interact very little with the heroine. One of the few characters who actually seem alive - despite his 'abridged' presence - is the dwarf Muir, played by brilliant actor Bob Hoskins, who here unfortunately delivered his last film performance.

Grade;+

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